CUA offers new Master’s Degree in Ecclesial Administration and Management for Priests

The Busch School of Business and Economics of the Catholic University of America will offer a Masters in Ecclesial Administration and Management for Catholic clergy starting this fall. With this degree, the Busch School of Business will fulfill a great need in the Church today: the need for priests to develop effective and efficient leadership in order to better fulfill their administrative responsibilities both at the parish and diocesan levels.

Drawing from best practices established in the secular business environment, this program will provide tools to the clergy and key figures in parishes, dioceses, and religious orders to better execute their administrative responsibilities. The program will assist priests in their managerial role, introducing them to new approaches and methods, new managerial and organization techniques, as well as giving them the ability to identify, solve, and prevent crises. Recognizing the busy schedule of parish priests, the program is mostly completed through online modules, requiring only one week of class attendance at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC.

Seminaries today are aware that despite the many years of preparation before priestly ordination, there are still formation elements lacking. Perhaps the most notable lack is administrative training that will assist the priest in the day-to-day running of a parish, particularly as the pastor. Oftentimes a man leaves the seminary after six to eight years having learned little to nothing about budgets, personnel issues, and management. Whatever administrative knowledge a seminarian enters formation with is the same knowledge he departs with from the seminary. The newly ordained priest has learned how to pray, how to preach, how to evangelize, but he has seldom learned how to manage a parish office and a budget which at some parishes can easily exceed one million dollars.

Mario Enzler, the Program Director, is eager to begin this program which will tremendously serve the Church. I had the opportunity to meet him several months ago when he visited Savannah. Mario is a man who loves the Church and wants to place his gifts at the service of the Church and her priests. A Swiss Guard for three years under John Paul II, and an investment banker and corporate financier for eighteen, Mario has recruited capable professors who are experts in their fields to teach the priest students.

Cardinal Wuerl, along with numerous other U.S. Bishops and Vatican officials are avid supporters of this new program. Cardinal Wuerl believes that this Masters in Ecclesial Administration and Management “will be a welcome resource to guide pastors and their finance councils through a planning and budgeting cycle with an eye to good consultation, collaboration and communication. Priests will learn how to make pastoral planning, budgeting and financial transparency a regular part of parish life.”